I woke early today. No reason, just awoke. Generally I go with Dr. Dyers suggestion to listen to what the early morning quiet wants to whisper to you. The gentle silence of the dawning day does lend itself to contemplative thought and often words will bubble up. Essays or poems given the all clear to swim up to the surface of the mind to be scooped up and prepared for consumption like so many fishes.

I’ve sometimes thought that I should make a habit of rising early in the morn to get a jump on the live-long day in one way or another. Alas, it does not come naturally to me at all, barring these occasional lapses.

I lived my entire childhood with a woman who was naturally an early riser and annoyingly perky with it. At least to the grumpy bear she was poking with a stick to try to wake from hibernation every morning. To me, I’d rather you didn’t coat the stick with honey. The situation was sticky enough without gumming up the works any further.

Eventually, as most (relatively) reasonable humans do, we worked out a system that worked pretty well for the most part. Mainly: I used an alarm clock and she steered clear of me until later in the day.

But, of course, I digress.

Back to this early morning business. I think that it is rare anymore to sit in complete silence without any electronic sounds going or machines running. That is one of the chief benefits of camping, I’d say. We don’t camp much. It involves entirely too much planning and organization for my brain to really contemplate it seriously as a task I want to take on. I do need to try to make more of an effort to do it, tough, as my husband is an outdoorsman at heart and needs the air and sky and dirt and trees in much the same way he needs food to eat and water to drink.

He is determined to return to hunting. His expectation was this season, but i think he is not recovered enough yet from his most recent poor health adventures to accomplish it so soon. But I think it could be managed next year if all goes well and he is determined to regain his weight and strength. At the very least, a camping trip or two seems only fair.

Back to the topic at hand (again), I was talking of the rarity of sitting in silence, free from the whir and buzz of modern contraptions and contrivances. Or even just the bustle of other inhabitant’s habitation.

I live fairly rurally and am able, on occasions such as this, to pause and just listen to the birds chirping. Even they have settled into quietness for now. I suppose it is a blessing that even the refrigerator must rest from running sometimes. As must we all, of course.

Some people panic at the thought of being alone with themselves, I’ve heard. I’ve always been prone to dwell in my head a lot (too much, I suppose some might say). I’m comfortable with only my thoughts for company, at least for a while. Eventually I would need to seek out distraction in one form or another, whether that form would be the pages of a book, the flicker of a screen, or the society of a companion.

Of course, some of the best companions are those who can accompany you in your silence.

I am often more eloquent in my head or on the page than i am in person. So interpersonal relations can be hard sometimes to figure out and maintain. I’ve noticed that a significant number of my friends over the years have been horse people. It’s interesting to me because I’ve never particularly been interested in horses beyond my general affinity for all animals. I was thinking recently that that might be because they are more aware of body language and unspoken communication than most people. It occurs to me as I write this, though, that they are also usually calm and fairly well grounded so as not to transfer a nervous energy to the horse and also not to spook them.

As a person who derives much of her energy/mood from the people around her, I find that I need steady, calm folk around me who won’t transfer their nervous energy to me or spook me.

Obviously I am the horse in this scenario.

I suppose it’s clever of me to instinctively seek out good “handlers.”

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This is a very interesting self realization, and I have to laugh, because your wandering is what happens if I ever try and meditate. Keeping the horse from wandering is difficult, but proved useful in this musing on meditation.